How did a German refugee from Hitler, an internee and a jobbing journalist, become the Grand Old Man of English art history? The answer lies in his extraordinary one-man survey of all the architecturally significant buildings in the country, county by county. This lecture explores what Pevsner said, rightly or wrongly, about the buildings in your society’s area – churches, houses, shops, town halls, tower blocks, factories, cinemas – and sets his pronouncements in the context of The Buildings of England as a whole. The series has both detractors and passionate defenders, but no imitators.

The Christmas season is a period of travel for many of us: to visit family and friends, or perhaps as part of our personal pilgrimage marking this significant religious event – or maybe, to escape the festivities and winter weather on a beach in Dubai! The celebration of the birth of Jesus has often been accompanied by songs, literature and images of His birth and the homage paid to Him by kings and shepherds. Many artists have immortalized these journeys, real and spiritual, in paintings and sculpture depicting the Annunciation by the angel Gabriel, Mary and Joseph traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the Census, the Nativity itself witnessed by shepherds, the Epiphany and the Adoration of the Magi, and the Flight into Egypt.

In this talk Justin considers artists’ depiction of these significant events, focusing on the long, arduous journey made by the Magi following a star to offer gifts for the new-born king. We shall view artworks of these events by Leonardo, the Elder Breughel, Duccio, Gentile, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Burne-Jones, Rubens, and other artists. 

This talk discusses great art depicting the journeys of people very different from each other, and from different lands and times to our own, whose travels have become part of our culture today.

Take a trip into a horse drawn city just as a revolution was motoring in. Without its horses, London in 1900 would have ground to a halt – no buses, no deliveries, no goods trains. Alongside London’s growing dependence on technology was a vast increase in the demand for horses. This eye opener to a lost city mixes what's still there - the mews, horse hospitals, cab shelters and drinking troughs - with what is less apparent - like the horsepower each bus route needed, and why flogging a dead horse wasn't just a turn of phrase. In fact, in 1900 the end was nigh – as the internal combustion engine fired up and the Great War loomed.

From the early sixties, when he left the Royal College of Art more famous than his teachers, Hockney's paintings have shown a charm and humour that sets them apart from others of his generation. A naturally gifted draftsman, his love of ingenious visual devices has led him to experiment with a whole range of techniques, from stage design to coloured paper making. From the early abstract expressionist images, through his famous Californian scenes of swimming pools to the photo-montages of the mid eighties, this lecture follows the career of an artist whose wit and imagination has never faltered.  

Dame Tracey Emin is one of the most important contemporary artists of her generation. She was catapulted into the public eye in the 1990s with iconic works like her Turner Prize nominated My Bed, which sparked fierce critical and public debate, challenging what art could be. Emin’s highly confessional and deeply personal work epitomised an historic moment in British culture and global art history. Through painting, video, textiles, neons, writing, sculpture, and installation, Emin continues to challenge boundaries using the female body - her body - as a powerful tool to explore passion, pain, and healing. 

Leighton was one of the most slippery characters in the Victorian art-world. He managed to walk a social tight-rope: he was an Establishment figure, honoured as President of the Royal Academy, for his portraits of distinguished men. But he also created some of the most disturbingly sensual images of his generation. This lecture considers the art of self-presentation in the lives of Leighton and his colleague in the Aesthetic revolution, James Whistler, as they pursued ‘Art for Art’s sake’.   

In 1745, a Princess from the minor province of Anhalt-Zerbst in Saxony, married Prince Karl Peter Ulrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf, heir to the Imperial Russian Throne. She was Princess Sophie Auguste Frederike and by 1762 she had deposed her husband, was crowned Empress Catherine II and became the sole ruler of the Russian Empire. 

With seemingly inexhaustible wealth, she set about creating the most glittering court in Europe, if not the world.